Research Interests

After completing an undergraduate degree majoring in Chinese at Connecticut College, I pursued graduate study in Chinese history at UC Berkeley (M.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D., 1983). I held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and the University of Rochester and a tenure-track assistant professorship at Connecticut College before I joined the UCLA faculty in 1987. My primary field of research is the economic and social history of premodern China, with a particular focus on the period 1000-1700. My publications include three monographs in Chinese history,several edited books, and a co-authored textbook in world history. I continue to pursue research in Chinese monetary history, especially the interrelationship between China’s monetary system and wider spheres of monetary circulation within Asia and on a global scale. During the 2013-14 academic year I was on leave with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship and completed a book manuscript, The Economic History of China from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century , that I am currently preparing for publication.

In addition to teaching courses on all periods of Chinese history, I teach a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in world history.

Selected Publications

Books:

The Country of Streams and Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and the Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1987.

“Monies of Account and Monetary Transition in China, Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries.” In Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 53.3 (2010).

“南宋中国における複合通貨と地域通貨圏の形成” (Multiple Currencies and the Formation of Regional Currency Systems in Southern Song China). In 宋銭の世界 (The World of Song Money), pp. 275-294. Ed. Ihara Hiroshi 伊原弘. Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2009.

“Foreign Silver Coins in the Market Culture of Nineteenth Century China.” International Journal of Asian Studies 4.1 (2007): 51-78.

Alongside our existing 12 sub-fields, the History Department supports a number of cross-field clusters. The clusters are intended to attract students and faculty to important themes and current in the historical discipline. The clusters will offer new courses, sponsor outside speakers, and convene Department-based workshops and seminars.